Authorities said she had left the toddler in the car after taking the other children she was babysitting inside. This is the 14th child to die in a hot car nationwide and the sixth in Florida this year.
Published Jul 20, 2023 6:42 PM EDT | Updated Jul 21, 2023 7:27 AM EDT
A Florida babysitter was arrested after a 10-month-old girl died Wednesday in a hot car.
Rhonda Jewell, 46, who had been babysitting the toddler along with three other children, was arrested and facing a charge for the aggravated manslaughter of a child, according to an arrest statement by the Baker County's Sheriff's Office over Facebook.
Jewell had picked up the toddler and other children from the mother's residence in north Macclenny, Florida, roughly 30 miles west of Jacksonville, around 8 a.m. EDT before driving them to another residence in south Macclenny where she was going to babysit them. When she arrived, she brought the other children into the residence but the 10-month-old was left in the vehicle.
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The toddler wasn't discovered until the mother arrived around 1 p.m., local time, and she called the police to tell them that her child wasn't breathing and her lips were blue, according to the incident report.
First responders took the child to Fraser Memorial Hospital where she was pronounced deceased.
The temperature inside the vehicle had reached "over 133 degrees, for a period of at least 5 hours," according to the incident report obtained by First Coast News. Medical personnel said the toddler's external temperature was recorded at 102.1 degrees while her internal temperature reached 110 degrees, but the thermometer could not read temperatures higher than 110.
Parts of the South, including Macclenny are currently experiencing a heat wave with temperatures upwards of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. On Wednesday, the daily high temperature was 99 degrees Fahrenheit with a low of 73 degrees. A heat advisory was also in place from noon until 5 p.m. EDT, according to the National Weather Service.
This is the 14th time a child has died in a hot car nationwide and the sixth occurrence in Florida this year, according to Kids and Car Safety, a nonprofit organization that works to raise awareness of and prevent vehicle-related accidents.
More than 1,050 children under the age of 14 have died in a hot car nationwide, and at least another 7,300 survived with varying types and severities of injuries, according to the organization.
"On average, 38 children in hot cars every year, and that’s 38 way too many," Kids and Car Safety President and Founder Jannette Fennell told AccuWeather in an interview. "I don’t think people truly understand how quickly the temperature rises."
The greatest increase in temperature, Fennell said, happens within the first 10 minutes after turning off the air conditioning and locking the door. This makes those first few minutes crucial.
"Little children don’t have a mature respiratory system, so they really can’t sweat and dissipate that heat," Fennell said. "Put all that together, and you certainly have a recipe for disaster."
A slight change in routine can be enough to make a parent or guardian forget to look, she added, emphasizing that it can happen to anyone. About 87% of children who die in hot cars are 3 years old or younger, the majority (56%) of whom were unknowingly left by a parent or caregiver.
"People want to make monsters out of the people that this happens to, but you need to understand that it happens to absolutely anyone," she said.
Kids and Car Safety promotes the tip "look before you lock," so people get into the habit of opening the backseat door every time they arrive at their destination.
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